What am I going to grow?

OK, I look at this enormous life change, and its easiest to break things down in to doable chunks, I am also fundamentally lazy, so pontificating is what I do best. The worst thing I can do here is rush in and then regret actions at my leisure. This would also impact on another bugbear of mine, wasting money.
Of course this is a very involved process. The 'Survey' is an important part of the plan.

I start with looking at what we, as a family eat, no point in growing stuff to chuck it out:

Apples
Pears
Bananas
Grapes
Satsumas
Blueberries
Raspberries

Carrots
Potatoes
Parsnips
Garlic
Tomatoes
Peppers
Chillies
Aubergines
Sweetcorn
Squash
Courgettes
Salads
Beans - French/Broad/Runner

Herbs - Tarragon/Basil/Parsley etc...

I then look at what can be grown in my climate - this takes out bananas, satsumas but most other things are doable

Apples
Pears
Bananas
Grapes
Satsumas
Blueberries
Raspberries

Carrots
Potatoes
Parsnips
Garlic
Tomatoes
Peppers
Chillies
Aubergines
Sweetcorn
Squash
Courgettes
Salads
Beans - French/Broad/Runner

Herbs - Tarragon/Basil/Parsley etc..

I have an array of microclimates throughout the year, and throughout the garden. The solar aspect means that I can grow stuff outside the kitchen door during the summer as the sun will hit that spot during the afternoon. During the winter however the sun never reaches that far around. The end of the garden receives sun all year round - it just suffers from being at the end of the garden! I need to marry my crops with their microclimates. This is very important - right plant right place

Some things will give me a better yield with the limited space I have. Some things will also be better suited to the solutions I have in order to be able to plant eg. I can grow salads in guttering attached to a wall. I can grow tomatoes against a sunny south facing wall,

The main limitation I have in this space is its size. The fact that I want it to perform so many functions other than just grow food means that Michelle has not allowed me to dig the whole thing up and create an allotment or rather, food forest. I have to be cleverer than that.

So I look at my list and decide what might be on my first ( but by no means final) shit list. I will revisit this later in order to see if there are any other solutions available here.

Stuff that needs too much room and time is eradicated

Apples
Pears
Bananas
Grapes
Satsumas
Blueberries
Raspberries

carrots
Potatoes
Parsnips
Garlic
Tomatoes
Peppers
Chillies
Aubergines
Sweetcorn
Squash
Courgettes
Salads
Beans - French/Broad/Runner

Herbs - Tarragon/Basil/Parsley etc..

I know the remainder will either continue to crop over years if maintained correctly, or will give me a decent yield from relatively small spaces or few plants

Right - so I've decided what is probably going to do ok in my space, whats going to give me the best potential yields, and I now want to think of placements and communities (or guilds) - the idea being that we mix it all up a bit - certain crops are gonna flower and crop at certain times - we try and engineer a community so that we attract pollinators in, predators to take out pests, plants which create habitat for other plants and plants which accumulate nutrients which in turn feed others...

Another way of maximising the space is through my systems. I include here a south facing shack wall, sun trap on the South western facing corner, wall guttering throughout, espaliered trees, pergolas, smaller structures for climbers and potentially hugel mounds (I'll explain this lot later).

So we've looked at space - now time and effort - I am WELL LAZY! I don't want to garden as hard as I do every day on the weekend - I want to concentrate on other stuff - so one of the real points here is to emulate natural systems so that the stuff looks after itself - just like in nature. this is better for the environment and me. Guilds are an essential part of this - as are perennial no dig systems. It ends up basically covering the fruit - but if I were to include globe artichokes, asparagus, Rhubarb, some of the walking onions, traditional forage and weedy stuff and change my mindset a bit then we've got loads of stuff.

With  regards to the annuals like tomatoes, salads, courgettes and beans - its not actually as bad as you'd think if we give em what they need. by building soil through good practice, and building watering systems that require minimal interaction from me - i'm hoping to build something that after an initial burst of effort, requires very little. Watch this space!